The Solstice we just passed historically was a time of aligning oneself with the seasons and one's beliefs and the great beyond you peered at in the morning, and at night. Such a foreign concept to us now, where it once was accepted as a pathway to a lifestyle that was sustainable, and balanced. I sometimes wish there were at least billboards, in lieu of the elders we once trusted and listened to, reminding us that there truly is no cheating health, that good quality water, food and restoration are essential for a balanced, healthy life.
Yet within all that ancient human wisdom lies the way in which our nervous systems (The Autonomic Nervous System, to be precise, with two parts that do rise up and do go lie down) initialize the functions of our whole bodies, taking turns so that we can indeed rise up and awaken and focus and plan and accomplish.......and then soften and quiet and stop thinking and slow ourselves down, until we gently plop ourselves into...sleep. And we recharge, only when that happens. Now, who wants to be very able and strong for as long as possible?
All of this functioning of your nervous system with all your body is accomplished because the SNS (Sympathetic Nervous System), with it's best friend the PFC (Pre-frontal Cortex, inside your forehead, Dude)
does the waking and jumping out of bed and planning and focusing (and asking for coffee and coffee and coffee, no help at all in fact), as surely as the sun 'comes up' and all dew dries and insects and creatures and plants open and lean toward the light to grow and speed functioning. We humans , with our small Pineal Gland
inside the front of our brain, SEE the moonlight and SEE the sunlight of morning and in an ancient wisdom , even with eyes closed in sleep, wakes us up in the morning or makes Melatonin and spurs the production of other brain chemicals and enable us to get up and on our way. And feel okay about it.
In order for us to 'set', like the sun, and have our moon 'rise', at the end of the day we need time. Time away from planning and worrying. Time away from screens like THIS one, time away from TV's and Ipads and phones and...time so that all those ancient parts of us...can slow down, and do the equivalent of watching the sun set...listening to the Aspen leaves flutter in the breeze of the season, taking note, unconsciously, of the humidity in the air, the minute shifts in our own bodies, aligning themselves with all that is around us. This grounds us. All we have to do is show up and hush up and open up.
All of this enables us to set our suns, allow our Pre-Frontal Cortex to stop it's chattering and domination of our brain function, and get gently but firmly tucked into ...bed. So that the moon CAN rise, our unwinding CAN begin, it CAN accomplish what it MUST in a slow smooth slide, with so many intricate, vulnerable steps in between you would never believe it, to our drowsiness and then heavy lidded, heavy limbed sleepiness, to climbing into our bed, wherever it may be, to turning out the light, to the faint awareness of what part of it's cycle the powerful moon is in, to our bodies gradually letting go of thoughts, of feelings, of anxieties and tangled up experiences, sliding slowly and eventually into deep and deeper ....sleep.
The Pre-Frontal Cortex thinks this is boooorrring.
The Parasympathetic Nervous System finds this,
or something you like better,
soothing and unwinding.
Sometimes we feel crabby and itchy as we settle.
Tv and Computers and Cell Phones
do not unwind people. Sorry.
Boring the PFC is key to getting back to sleep in the
night. One great trick is, when you wake, keep
your eyelidslowered, don't allow yourself to
THINK. When you get back into bed,
imagine a blackboard, chalk and eraser.
Imagine you are picking up the chalk, writing '1',
putting down the chalk, picking up the eraser,
erasing it, putting down the eraser, picking up the chalk,
writing '2', putting down the chalk, picking
up the eraser, erasing it, and so on. Bores the PFC
to death and you fall back asleep.
In order to do this, our Sympathetic Nervous System has to be taken by the hand, firmly pulled from all the all the stuff it wants to wants to think about and look at and DO, and lead it irrevocably...to bed. And deep sleep. Only then, can the moon come up...can the Parasympathetic Nervous System...rise up like an enormous, powerful moon in the sky, and signal the reparation of all organs and systems.
When you sleep, and your SNS has been effectively put to bed, the PNS repairs. Yup. It repairs your liver, and your kidneys, and your brain, and your hands, and your circulation. It repairs your brain chemical balance and your hormonal balance and cleans things out and moves crap into your intestines and all you have to do...is get out of the way. And off it goes. Brilliant.
The thing I tell adolescents most often in my practice, besides promising them that things will get better if they just stay awake and aware and give themselves a break and hang on til they're 25 or so, is to protect their capacity to poop (hahahahah always) and sleep. Really, I say. They look at me like I'm nutso. I say, "You know, those are the two things adults screw up most, and then suffer a whole lot because of it. "
When people have insomnia, or their sleep cycles get a bit messed up, they slowly respond like a rechargeable battery that is not slid properly into the recharger. For some, it can take months, years or decades to realize how vital and damaging a lack of good quality, regular sleep is. Really. That's why Sleep Apnea, often related to a backlog of Lymphatic Waste (not breaking down the stuff you eat or breathe well, it thickening up your lymphatic fluid, getting you acutely or chronically congested.)
One of the easiest ways to resolve simple garden variety depression is to build someone up. And teach them how they have an allowance. Of energy. And that despite what they might WANT, there really is no cheating. You either got energy, or you don't If you don't, stop using stuff up here and there, and then learn what you need to do to recharge. Before long, they are shaking their heads in wonder, talking about how all the crap in their lives is the exact SAME, but they are not depressed. It all looks more ...ok...to them.
We do have an allowance. have you noticed? Here is the secret....you get to have an allowance of energy based on how well your organs and systems are doing. That's it. If your organs and systems improve, you start having a bigger allowance. If you go use more energy than you have to spend, your account overdraws, you get charged a fee, and your organs and systems go downhill. You feel more like crap. Keep doing it, and more crap.
If you have a low level sub-clinical infection somewhere, or a noisier one, it will take some of your allowance and you will be more worn out.
If you have a health challenge, gradually it will take more of your allowance and you will be more worn out.
If you are fighting getting sick, some of your allowance will be off, busy, dealing with the illness, so you will be more tired.
Learn to sit up and take notice,when your allowance is off. Ask yourself to review your sleep, how you have been eating and drinking water, if you have been using more energy than you had to use and have an overdrawn account (which feels hopeless and crabby and all),
If you don't have enough good quality sleep, eventually, like a little kid, you might SAY you are FINE but will be all up into it with crabbiness and intolerance and everyone around you will begin to look....off...because YOU are off, because , guess what? You actually need more sleep.
If you work harder and longer than you have an allowance for, surprise surprise, you will gradually get worn out.
And often when we get up too often with a baby or little kid or ill partner or parent, or anxiety
(Bam...awake. no idea what it is. Why is this happening to me? Surprise.....unresolved stuff bothering you. Learn to sit outside and not think, and let yourself learn to notice what EMOTION you are feeling, and then just sit there and let yourself feel it...and let it unwind. Digest your experiences. There you go. Maybe read about or check out some chewable GABA ...thoughts going round and round, or chewable Theanine...wound up, anxious, or 5htp...burning through Seratonin and feeling low low... )
we often disrupt our sleep pattern. It feels emotional, and it ends up being physical.
As in, when you are a bodyworker and you work on someone, without them telling you, you can find it. The glitches. The depletion. The not enough sleep, or the extended energy use that emptied them a bit.
As in, ok, they are heading down the runway to land, easing themselves into sleep, yup yup, it's going well, wing flaps down, landing gear released, and ...glitch...there's a glitch there....and they hover, or bump about, or after all the bumping, maybe finally fall asleep, only to wake with a jerk (Liver irritation...go check out Milk Thistle, or Dandelion, or something nice to help the poor overworked liver deal with the dirty complicated world) or maybe you are a bit older than 40, and making less Melatonin, so check out and research trying 1.5 mg at bedtime, and leave the other half of the tablet by the bed, so if you wake, let it dissolve in your mouth (yuck) and go straight into your bloodstream. See if that changes night waking.
How wound up we get in the day...surprise....is still there when it's sunset time. So it's worth your while, as an individual or parent, to explore the unwinding thing.
Kids do well with 'tell me your worse and best'. Best last, right? They are in bed and they tell you one crappy thing they HATED and you BITE YOUR PARENTAL LIP and just listen. Right? And empathize. Because no matter what you think, if you interrupt them expressing themselves and you empathizing, it won't work. In fact, if you parent long enough, you sometimes have this huge epiphany- that as they get older, aside from setting limits and feeding and loving them (no matter how much they may insist they cannot stand you at the moment, a phenomena I call Parent Allergy, which does pass) all they really need.....is never your solution. But always your empathy. "That sounds miserable." "What was that LIKE??" "Crap, you must have felt really angry after that."
When you work on someone, or I teach someone how to smooth out their hard-to-fall-asleep glitches, it often involves me describing their moving from their noisy, planning, focusing Sympathetic Nervous System function.....to their quiet, listening, unwinding, watching the sunset or campfire or sliding into sleep...Parasympathetic Nervous System.
I suggest that people imagine a staircase, with 10 stairs. #10 at the top, #1 at the bottom. They are usually lying on their stomach on an acupressure table, my hands at the base of their neck/shoulders (brain stem, cranial nerves, limbic system).
As I move through these areas, I describe how they are on the 10th stair, all focused and aware and planning, and then we move to the 9th stair, all that but less so, as I do that with their body, then the 8th stair, like when you are working but go have lunch or go to the bathroom or read something easy during a break. Then the 7th, when you are driving a bunch of kids in a car but they're all settled, or you're leaving work, leaving behind what you were focusing on. And then 6, Where whatever you are doing, there are more choices, despite maybe needing to make dinner or negotiate kid stuff or kid struggles, or look over bills or check the fuse box, or , you know, walk the bouncing snapping pup...to 5, where you are done with dishes and laundry and things to look into and you are unwinding , reading or on the Tv or computer or phone, or texting or facebook, or maybe delighting in your little devils as they slowly finish their bath and talk incessantly about the day or how they hated so and so....to 4, where, in your body, you help yourself begin to settle down, consciously relaxing your shoulders, your belly, your legs and arms, surprised at how you were holding them so tight without knowing it, and you are watching a tv or computer, or step outside and slap mosquitoes while you listen to the
wind in the trees, catching sight of a few or many stars, depending on where you live, or you lean into your bedroom window, feeling the air from outside, be it freezing or hot and humid, breathing deeply, letting go of things as they come up in your mind, that stupid driver, the crappy clerk at the store who misunderstood what you said, the nosy neighbor who watches everything, the tenant next door who leaves stuff outside their door everyday, you just feel it as a stream of STUFF leaves you, uncrinkling, unwinding, lettting go, the concerns about your relationship or health or kid or friend....you know you need to recharge yourself. You know you need to let yourself do what you were wired genetically to do, over the past thousands of years...to sit in the village in the woods around the campfire, all disagreements let go as night descends, and sing together, or listen to a story for the 50th time, or just relish the quiet of being there, under the inestimable heavens above.
As the sun sets, the world turns in the heavens, and there is the moon awaiting us. The powerful moon that compels waves and tides, the moon that compels deaths and births, that shifts so many invisible parts of our lives. When the sun sets, so should our Sympathetic Nervous System, veering down as our bodies relax and release, down down the staircase.
This no longer happens by its little lonesome, because we live such complex lives in such a complex world. Not long ago, there were elders who we more often than not revered.And they would speak of such things, and we would listen.
Now, our culture thrives on the sense of individuality. Of personal choice. Of stuff. And more stuff. We have to be reminded, like its a big new idea, all the time, to drink good water, to never delay going to the bathroom if possible. To dress warmly in cold weather so your body doesn't use up stored fuel keeping you warm. To have feelings of anger and sadness and rage and disappointment but sit with them when there is time, sit there and HAVE them til they are digested, and then let go. With your body.
With a client on the table, we go up the staircase, my voice quiet and sure, describing how their body may be feeling their heart, their spine, their extremities their eyes. And then we go down, step by step. I stop where there are glitches, and wait, as the body initiates a process. Who knew our bodies did these things , eh? And then down, stair by stair. Then up slowly, feeling the change , feeling how you as an individual feel at the third stair, at the seventh. I suggest people practice at the lights. What stair are you on? Can you lower it? The lower the stair we are hanging out on, the less energy we are using!!
We on earth watch as the sun comes up and goes down, as the moon comes up and goes down. Some of us on The Equinoxes and The Solstices are especially aware, even if it is only because we sit outside at night, just unwinding our selves at the end of our day, imagining who stood where we are sitting all those thousands of years. What animal or person or creature lived right around here, and had a life? And lo and behold, here you are, sitting right here, unwinding your sweet self, having your own.
Disclaimer- All nutritional information shared is provided as health information to be researched and utilized only with the help of a well informed Health Practitioner.
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